OA shouldn't stop at access
Joseph Esposito argues in the scholarly kitchen why it’s okay for OA articles (which come with a CC-BY license) to be repackaged and then sold for a price by other merchants once they’re out in a paper.
The economic incentive to reach new audiences could make that otherwise OA article into something that gets brought to the attention of more and more readers. What incentive does a pure-play OA publisher have to market the materials it publishes? Unfortunately, the real name of this game is not “Open Access” but “Post and Forget.” Well-designed commerce, in other words, leads to enhanced discovery. And when it doesn’t, it enters the archaeological record.
If we can chase the idealists, ideologues, and moralists out of the temple, we may see that the practical act of providing economic incentives may be able to do more for access than any resolution from Budapest, Bayonne, Bethesda, or Berlin. The market works, and when it doesn’t, things quietly go away. So why all the fuss?
It’s not an argument that’s evident on the face of it, becoming apparent only when you realize OA’s victory march stopped halfway at allowing people to access research papers, not find them. The people who are good to helping other people find stuff are actually taking the trouble to market their wares.
So Esposito’s essentially argued to leave in a “finding fee” where it exists because there’s a big difference between something just being there in the public domain and something being found. I thought I’d disagree with the consequences of this reasoning for OA but I largely don’t.
Where I stop short is where this permission to sell papers available for free infringes on the ideals of OA for no fault of the principle of OA. But then what can OA do about that?
Read: Getting Beyond “Post and Forget” Open Access, the scholarly kitchen
